A couple of Sundays ago, I skipped out on church early and drove out to the Berkshires for the afternoon.

I’m a longtime fan of The Bookstore in Lenox, despite the fact that I only get out there every couple of years. Matt, the owner, writes a rambling, erudite e-newsletter which I love reading every week, and in early July I opened it to find that Natalie Goldberg was coming for a Sunday afternoon reading and book signing.

This came the day after I’d been talking to a friend about Natalie’s work – explaining how I stumbled on Writing Down the Bones the summer after I graduated from college, when an acquaintance was selling off a few of her books. I bought it and a few others (including Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water), never dreaming what an effect Natalie’s words would have on the way I thought about my writing and my life.

The whole afternoon, from start to finish, was a delight. It felt – as these things sometimes do – like grace unbidden.

It started with the drive there, listening to good music on the radio and Elizabeth Gilbert’s delightful On Being episode, about following your curiosity. It continued when I walked into the store and heard the events manager testing the mic by reciting “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” in an Irish accent. He stopped after a couple of lines and mused, “Should I do the whole poem?” Everyone who’d already gathered responded, “Yes!”

I browsed a little while, then perched on a stool near the front counter for the event itself. Natalie arrived with her cousins in tow, and she was warm and down-to-earth, as I always hope authors will be. She read a few sections from her new book, standing in the middle of the store in a long black dress, telling us about love and illness and noticing, about grief and doctors and paying attention.

“You’re such deep listeners,” she kept saying to the group gathered in folding chairs or leaning against the back shelves. I think we were all simply fascinated. But it was clear that everyone in the room was so happy to be there.

I loved every moment: the breeze wafting through the open door, other browsers wandering in and out, my fellow audience members listening so intently and asking good questions. Most of all I loved hearing Natalie’s voice – which I have heard so often in my head over the years – in real life. Afterward, I went up and asked her to sign both her new book and my copy of Writing Down the Bones, bristling with Post-Its. “I’ll sign as many books as you want,” she had said to the crowd, and many of us took her up on that offer.

The great pleasure of any bookstore is browsing, of course, and I wandered among the shelves for a little while before and after the event. I ended up with a copy of Natalie’s new book (of course), a memoir by a 747 pilot, some Alastair Reid poetry, and Matt’s slim, self-published memoir of his years working at the now-defunct Gotham Book Mart in NYC. He exclaimed when I brought it to the register, and we had a delightful exchange. I told him I’d been there before, and how much I love the store. Matt offered to sign his book, and when I peeked inside I saw that he’d inscribed it – to my delight – “For Katie, who came back!”

I left feeling nourished in a soul-deep way: from having spent an afternoon among people who love words and good stories and this world. “I wanted to grab a hunk of living again and hold on tight,” Natalie writes in the introduction to her new memoir. That afternoon in Lenox was a vivid, flavorful hunk of living, and I savored its sweetness all the way home.

I hope your holidays were wonderful. We spent ours in Texas, driving back and forth along a stretch of I-20 and spending time with several groups of people we love. I have stories (and photos of my brand-new nephew, Harrison) to share, but today I’m thinking about the words I want to keep in mind as I enter 2015.

I love the clean-slate, pristine feeling of a new year, and while I don’t always make resolutions, I usually choose a “word for the year.” This year’s word is gentle. I’ll have more to say about that soon, but after a hectic autumn and a stressful lead-up to Christmas, I’m ready for some gentleness. To that end, I’ve been remembering a line from Desiderata: “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.” I’d like to pursue both halves of that line this year.

I’ve also been remembering a quote from Emerson that Lindsey tweeted a few months ago: “Let us be poised, and wise, and our own today.” Not a bad mantra, I’d say. Perhaps I should tape it to my bathroom mirror, or someplace where I’ll see it every morning.

I am a longtime fan of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and I found this next quote there, but it actually comes from Judith Guest, who wrote the book’s foreword. Guest says:

Some years ago, while cleaning out my grandmother’s attic, I came across this motto encased in an old oak picture frame: Do Your Work As Well As You Can and Be Kind. I remember laughing over what I thought then was a rather quirky juxtaposition of messages. Now it makes such perfect sense to me that I wonder how I could have missed it.

I have lots of plans and dreams for 2015, but that motto above sums them all up in one line. This year, I want to do my work as well as I can, and be kind. And be gentle, with myself and others. (I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be following the advice in the top photo, too.)